App Install Fraud

App install fraud is a growing problem for mobile platforms and app developers, with fraud rates reaching as high as 50% for some ad networks. Detecting these fraudulent installs is becoming harder as fraudsters camouflage their installs with increasingly sophisticated techniques like location and device spoofing, click jacking, and simulated user activity. DataVisor’s Unsupervised Machine Learning Engine is uniquely capable of detecting these fraudulent installs because it analyzes all accounts and events simultaneously, uncovering the hidden connections between them. This allows it to detect entire rings of fake installs at once, even when each install is not suspicious when analyzed in isolation.

Fake user Activity

Device Obfuscation

Fraudsters utilize mobile device flashing, virtual machines and scripts to appear as though they are using different devices.

Probing Weaknesses

Attackers probe their target’s detection methods at small scale first, then launch massive campaigns after they find exploitable weaknesses.

Why UML is Needed to Detect Fake Installs

Rules engines and supervised machine learning models are often fooled by the sophisticated techniques fraudsters use to camouflage their fake installs. These techniques change rapidly and make fraudulent installs appear very realistic when viewed in isolation. Datavisor’s UML Engine is uniquely capable of combating these techniques because it analyzes all accounts and events at once, detecting the hidden connections between suspicious installs. This allows it to detect entire rings of fraudulent installs at once, even when each install is not suspicious in isolation. It also detects new and rapidly changing attack techniques without needing training data or labels.

Stop New & Evolving Attacks

Automatically detect new and rapidly evolving attacks without waiting for training data or labels.

Accuracy and Coverage

Analyze hidden connections between accounts to detect more attacks while lowering false positives.

Traceable Fraud Reports

Learn More About Fighting App Install Fraud

DataVisor has partnered with one of the most well respected gaming companies in the world, with a massive install base of more than 300 million users across 180+ countries, to help them fight user acquisition fraud.

The DataVisor Detection Solution

Unsupervised Machine Learning Engine

Predict new, unknown threats without labels or training data by analyzing hundreds of millions of accounts and events simultaneously using the industry’s most advanced unsupervised learning technology.

What’s Happening with App Install Fraud

One of the things we heard repeatedly during our most recent meetup on User Acquisition Fraud was frustration at not knowing where a company stands in terms of fraudulent users. It was clear that people want to

Device fingerprinting, i.e., collecting information from a device for the purposes of identification, is one of the main techniques used by online services for mobile fraud detection. The goal is to recognize “bad” devices used

A version of this post also appeared on Mobile Advertising Watch. The mobile app landscape is extremely competitive. With more than three million apps available today in the major app stores, a new app has slim